Wine and Love

It's Thursday and time for a little wine and love :)

Wine

1. I failed at making time for blogging or reading this week. I don't like when that happens.

2. My blog has been spacing all my posts really weird and I don't like it.

3. I really wish I had normal sleeping ability and did not decide to think about five year olds, or anything else at 3:00 in the morning.

Love

1. This week was the 90th day of school, which means halfway through the year. This means mid-year assessment time which usually is a big fat wine. This year though I'm really proud of my kids and I'm having fun looking at all the progress they have made.

2. I am getting better at using my gift cards ever since I confessed to my ridiculous number that I hoard. Last week I got a free dinner and ice cream, free frozen yogurt on Sunday and a free dinner tonight. We will just not mention that tonight I forgot the paper and had to actually come home at the end of the meal to grab it (luckily the restaurant in 2 minutes away but still).

3. I ate well this week. Last night we went to dinner at my mom and dad's and my mom tried out a new delicious recipe. Then today, one of my student's mom's made me Vietnamese Egg Rolls for the Asian New Year. This is the second time this school year I have had authentic Chinese/Vietnamese food made for me, I could easily get used to this.

Maybe not the most eventful week, but a good one still. I'm looking forward to a weekend of relaxation in these parts! What are you guys up to?

Let It Snow- Cape Cod Style

Two weeks ago I was at the Cape running without a jacket on, and this weekend was a bit different.

This weekend some of my college roommates turned adult best friends came to visit. I had 5 roommates senior year of college and we now live in Massachusetts (me + Katie), Cincinnati (Ashley), Chicago (Gerry), New York (Cristina) and Linda (Washington DC). I feel lucky that since college I don't think one single year has gone by that I have not seen their lovely faces at least once for a reunion, football game, or wedding related activity. The last time we were all together was at my wedding :) Here we are with our whole college "group."

This weekend ended up being a reunion for only 4 of us, but we were all "together" via Skype on Saturday afternoon. The weekend was low key and relaxing. We were snowed in a bit on Saturday, I think we got about 10 inches of snow at the Cape!

Many great conversations were had, Dawson's Creek episodes watched and delicious food eaten. I love weekends.

Time to get back into gear for the week. We are doing lots of mid-year assessments at work this week, yikes! I'm just thankful that the Patriots are now going to the Superbowl so I can turn all activities into football related and win over my boys-boys once and for all. I'm going to be happy these boys turn everything into a race/competition when we have to put on snow gear for recess yet again tomorrow. First one to be ready for recess wins the Snow Superbowl! Ready... GO!

How often do you see friends from college? Do you live close to each other?

Secret Hoarders

Thank you for your comments on my baby fears post. I'm glad to hear that #1- I am not alone and #2- people who are pregnant/have kids still have the same fears and manage to overcome. Wahoo. Someday I will be one of you. But not soon. For now, I will hold on to my sleep, among other things.

Let's shift gears a bit to talk about another one of my many issues. Ha, I kid, I have no issues. Other than maybe obsessive travel planning... oh and the fact that it snowed last night and it took my students a full 20 minutes just to get ready for recess today. Recess is supposed to be 15 minutes, but we all know I don't part with recess. So math it was. Sorry first grade teachers! I blame it on the parents who buy their child tie boots. Whoever invented (and purchased) those obviously hated teachers. The feeling is mutual oh boot-makers.

Anyway, back to hoarding. I am really not a hoarder. I kind of hate having a lot of stuff because when I do it means I have to clean/organize it, which I don't like. I just donated 3 + bags of clothes to Goodwill this weekend, hoarders don't do that, right? But there are a few things I definitely hoard. They are:

Gift cards

Tea

Ghirardelli Peppermint Chocolate

Fine, maybe I have some issues. The thing is I LOVE all three of these things. That is what makes me hoard them. The fear that one day I will really want a Ghiradelli chocolate and they will be gone, NOOOOOOOO. The gift card problem is particularly absurd. I have probably 3 Starbucks cards in that pile, but what do I do when I go get a passion tea for Eric and I on Sunday mornings? Obviously hand over my debit card. Apparently I think that one Sunday morning I am not going to have the $2 to pay for my tea and the gift card is going to come to the rescue? Wow Kelly.

Alright, spill the beans. What do YOU hoard?

Baby Fever or Baby Fears?

As you probably know, I love kids. The last six years of teaching kids have brought me so much joy and laughter. Those children have made me so proud of their accomplishments and so happy for their happiness. However, those same children have also brought me stress, sleepless nights and challenges I sometimes felt I could never solve. In the next few years it will come time to have my own kids, and this really, truly scares me. Teaching is hard, and I know that being a parent will be so much harder. There are no vacations or long weekends from parenting. There is no saying goodbye to responsibilities at night, there are no lunch breaks. There is no saying goodbye at the end of a school year. From the minute I have that baby, there will be no break from being a mom for the rest of my life. I realize people take this plunge every minute somewhere on earth and that I am probably more prepared than some of those people to do this. But I still really, really fear it. There is a brief list of my baby related fears...

1. Sleep. I need it. I'm cranky and I get sick easily when I don't have it. Kids take it away. If it's not a crying and hungry infant, it's a sick and throwing up seven year old. If it isn't a "got in trouble at school today" fourth grader, it's a staying out way too late teenager.





2. Marriage. I once "joked" to Eric in a restaurant in Hawaii that kids ruin relationships, much to the evil eyes of the family next to us, oops. But in all honesty, Eric and I are really happy right now and I do worry that when we start losing sleep and having more responsibilities and less alone time, we will take it out on each other.





3. Work. I have had the pleasure of watching some wonderful teachers at my school become moms, and getting to know some already-mom teachers. I know it can be done and as far as full time jobs go, it's probably a good one to have with kids. But even still I worry about not being as good of a teacher, or as good of a mom. I worry about how I will react to dropping a baby off god-knows-where on my way to work. I worry even more about deciding not to work and surviving both financially and mentally as a stay-at-home mom.



4. Friends. I know it's unrealistic to expect to have as much time to devote to friends when you have kids and I'm okay with that. But I still worry, what if I can't maintain my friendships at all? What if my only friends become my kid's friend's moms? Or worse yet, what if I don't like any of my kid's friend's moms?



5. Kids. It goes without saying that the child itself is a huge fear of mine. Sure, I don't have any idea how to feed a baby, or really anything to do with a baby but I assume I will figure that out (aka ask my mom). I also don't really know what I'll do when my first grader's teacher calls, or my teenager lies to me. I truly believe I'd be able to figure out and manage all these "typical" situations, but what about the atypical? What if my child is born or acquires a real sickness? What if my child has a serious, serious behavior problem or autism or a delay? OR... what if my kid hates me? The possibilities are endless people...plus have I mentioned I am not good with throwing up? Kids always throw up... never in the toilet.



6. Tragedy. I'm not going to go here. I'm sure you can use your imagination. This scares me more than 1-5 put together.





I won't even get into my pregnancy fears.... but they definitely involve throwing up in the middle of teaching my students...



Wow, why do people do this again?



Anyone with me!?!

On Books

One of my goals for 2012 is to read 40 books. My favorite, favorite part of my job is teaching kids to read. I love reading myself and I want my kids to love reading just as much. Here are some random thoughts I have on books and reading... Please chime in with your thoughts in the comments.







On love for books: Most who know me know that I am not a big movie person. I enjoy TV shows, but movies are often too long for my attention span. I like some, but I am definitely more of a book person. What I love about books is how much is left up to my own imagination. There have been so many times I have pictured a character looking 100% different than someone else has. I also love how much more you learn about a character by reading about their inner thoughts, which often cannot be portrayed in movies as well. Usually how much I like the characters = how much I like the book.


On love for talking about books: I love getting book recommendations from friends, and then discussing what we liked/didn't like about the book. This is why I love participating in our Blogger Book Club, and also why I'm obsessed with good reads. A lot of my friends enjoy reading books as much as I do. Last year two of my friends and I read The Help and Water for Elephants and then saw the movies together.








On e-readers: Since I first wrote my post on the Kindle Pros and Cons I now own a Kindle and am pretty much in love. The cons I wrote about, particularly about having yet another cord/thing I need to charge are still a problem, but for the most part I would say the Pros of the Kindle far outweigh the cons for me. Still, although I love my Kindle I really, really fear what e-readers will do to books. I am particularly nervous about children's books being taken over by the e-reader. I can't imagine in 10-15 years only reading books to kids on a big projector! I don't even want to imagine...


On classics: While I have come pretty far from my days of Babysitter's Club, Sweet Valley High and chick lit after chick lit title, I am still not a fan of "the classics." I have often wondered if this was because I was forced to read many of these so-called classics at a time in my life (middle school/high school) when I simply was not ready to understand or appreciate them. I know I should give them another chance now, but so far my small attempts have been unsuccessful. In some ways I blame these books for wasting precious time in high school that I could've been reading some of the great young adult books that I now realize are out there. All that work I do in kindergarten getting kids to love reading and bam... high school English teachers go and ruin it.


On bookstores: Yet another fear about e-readers and Amazon in general is how quickly they seem to be putting bookstores out of business. Noooo! I love bookstores. Seriously, Eric and I can easily spend an hour or two in a bookstore without any effort. I love looking through travel books, teaching books, kids books and books for me. Plus, what is better than the feel of a brand new book? The only way to make bookstores better for me would be if they happened to open a frozen yogurt shop inside instead of a coffee shop.


On book recommendations: The past few weeks I've read some good, mostly quick read books. I highly recommend The Midwive's Confession and Saving CeeCee Honeycutt. I also really liked Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas and State of Wonder.


What are your thoughts on books? Have you read any good ones lately?

Kelly's Confessions

One of the kiddos I tutor on Tuesdays is making his First Communion this year. Last week was his first experience with Catholic Confession. I enjoy talking to kids about what they say in confession (yeah I know it's supposed to be confidential, oops) because they always come up with the funniest things. This particular child had an awesome list that included stealing his own Halloween candy, bringing his "in class" work home to finish so he wouldn't have to do it during recess and pretending a video game was broken so his sister couldn't play it. I wish I had been more creative when I was in CCD- I think I just said I was mean to my brother and sister every time. I swear I was actually a pretty nice sister overall but frankly I was young and really didn't do *that* much wrong to speak of! I don't really do the Confession thing any more... but I do have some random blog-worthy Confessions for you...

1. I am a little obsessed with Siri, my iPhone personal assistant. Today on the way home from yoga, she helped me change my dinner reservations for this weekend, text my mom to tell her about that change and text Eric back about what the heck we were having for dinner tonight. All this without looking at my phone at all. Once, I told Siri I loved her. She said I was the wind beneath her wings.

2. If it was socially acceptable I would live in yoga pants, leggings, flip flops and Uggs for the rest of my life.

3. Eric can easily convince me to do things I don't want to do if he casually mentions this annoyance is close to one of my favorite restaurants and promises we can go there after. I'm easily manipulated.

4. Even though I am a kindergarten teacher who holds my students to high expectations, I am a terrible student myself. I constantly check my phone, write notes to people around me and get other work done while the teacher is talking. I know, I hate myself sometimes.

5. IBS is the best excuse to never eat a single salad again. I hate salad and luckily, so does my stomach! It seems to love delicious sour dough and/or french bread though... seriously IBS is not all bad.

Do you have any confessions for me today? My lips are sealed :)

How to Plan the Best Trip- Kelly Style

If you know me at all, you know that I love a good trip. In my ideal world, I would probably go on 5 or 6 big trips a year. But alas, I do not have endless time and money. So when I plan a big trip, I really plan it. I think the trip planning obsession began with Eric and my fantastic Europe trip in 2006. Amber requested a post on how I plan a trip, so here it is :)

1. Decide on a general budget. Unless you already know where you want to go, you'll want to start with a budget. If your budget is $2000 it will be difficult to take a trip to China or even Europe because the airfare will cost close to or more than you want to spend on the whole trip. Also, decide what kind of things you want to spend money on. Are you okay with most of your budget going to airfare and then staying at hostels and eating Ramen noodles when you arrive? Would you prefer to go somewhere closer and then stay at a more luxury hotel or eat at nice restaurants? I also have some money saving tips and if you have no real budget at all, you can always be a tourist at home!

2. Decide where to go. For me this is the #1 hardest part. The problem is I love everything from small town Sedona to the big cities of Paris and London. I love the Irish countryside and the Hawaiian Islands. There are very few places in the world I don't want to visit. I do think it's important to determine what kind of vacation you want. Would you prefer to lay on the beaches at an all inclusive resort in the Dominican Republic or sprint around Rome taking in every possible ruin?

3. Talk to people you know. One of my favorite places on earth is Sedona and I found it because when I posted on my blog that I was going to Arizona to see the Grand Canyon, I received multiple comments telling me to go to Sedona. When I first started planning my trip to Seattle and Vancouver this summer, I e-mailed my friend who lives in Seattle and talked to my friend who has been to Seattle multiple times. The people you know are the best source of information about how long you should stay, where you should stay and what you should do.

4. Get some travel books. I have to admit I love travel books, particularly the Eyewitness books because they show you lots of great pictures. You can take these out of the library or buy them, it's up to you. My dad just introduced me to Eyewitness Top 10 books which I really love because they narrow down the top 10 things to do in an area overall, and then by neighborhood etc.

5. Book Your Flight. Usually the first thing you need to do is book a flight to your location. I recommend checking out several different websites to get the best deal. Sometimes the airline's website has the best deal. Bing Travel offers a price predictor for certain flights where it tells you whether your flight is likely to go up in price or down if you wait. It can also be useful to check a few days before and after your approximate date of departure because flight prices can vary a lot just by day. I've also heard rumors that flight prices are cheapest on Tuesdays and most expensive on the weekend. It's also possible it's all a crap shoot!

6. Visit TripAdvisor. I truly love this website and credit it for most of the success I have when planning vacations. I always start by using TripAdvisor to plan where I will stay on my trip. It has fantastic hotel reviews from real people. They even have a specialty lodging section which means you can read reviews on houses or apartment for rent. This can be an awesome way to save money especially if you plan to stay in one place for at least a few nights. You can also use TripAdvisor to determine if you will need to rent a car, and there are forums where you can ask questions. Also, revisit TripAdvisor often when you are planning what you will actually do when you arrive on your trip.

7. Bring your Laptop or Smart Phone. As much as I enjoy planning trips, I have trouble planning every detail until I am really on the trip. I like to decide each day based on my mood what I will do that day. This is why I find it SO essential to have my computer or smart phone available so I can use TripAdvisor or regular google searches to get ideas for places I want to see, hikes or walks I want to go on, restaurants I want to eat at etc. I also love the Yelp app on my phone which allows me to search restaurants by my current location. This way I can see reviews of nearby restaurants and make educated decisions about where I want to eat.

Happy Trip Planning! Do you have any exciting trips planned in the near future? If not, what is one great trip you have done in the past?